Facebook now lets all users opt out of notifications right in the drop down menu

As a part of its ongoing developer updates, Facebook has added a sweet improvement for users tired of excessive notifications. It now lets you toggle those notifications, opting out of future ones entirely, right in the notifications drop down menu.

Facebook has confirmed to The Next Web that, after running tests over the last few months, it is rolling this out to all users today.

This new system was rolled out to some users back in May, but it has gone out on a wider scale today. If you don’t have it yet then there’s a chance that a system like it will show up soon. Some users in the UK and New Zealand are reporting they’ve had it for a while.

This means that any apps, groups or other sources that send you notifications can now be muted much quicker. You could previously visit your Notification Settings page to do this, but this streamlines the process greatly. Just click on your notifications button and click on the small ‘x’ on the right hand side. If you hover over one on a notification sent by an app you’ll see a ‘turn off’ notice.

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I personally love this change, as I have a habit of clearing my notifications but never digging down into my preferences to change them permanently. Now you can weed out the notices from apps on the fly, paring down future notifications that you get in the future.

Developers can track these opt-out rates so they can see how many users are toggling these things off from their apps. Facebook says that ‘high quality’ notifications have actually seen a boost from this change:

For app developers, a less cluttered drop down menu means that notifications from high quality apps will stand out more. Early results have shown that apps that send high quality notifications have seen a lift to click-through and revenue with this update.

Image Credit: Chris Phan